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NCAA men: No upsets as Long Beach, UCLA, Ohio State, BYU all win

Brian Negron, left, and Langston Payne put up the Mason block against Long Beach State/GMU photo

The higher-ranked teams held form on Saturday night in NCAA Division I-II men’s volleyball, as No. 1 Long Beach, No. 2 UCLA, No. 5 Ohio State and No. 7 BYU were among the winners.

Also Saturday, Charleston, which had never won an EIVA match in its first two seasons, went back-to-back over Princeton and is 2-0 in the league, and Springfield beat SUNY New Paltz to win the International Volleyball Hall of Fame Morgan Classic in a rematch of the last two Division III national-championship matches.

Three ranked MIVA teams win: Ohio State made short work of visiting No. 14 Fort Wayne 25-23, 25-19, 25-14. Jake Hanes had 14 kills, three of his team’s eight aces, four digs and a block for Ohio State (9-2 overall, 2-0 MIVA). Maxime Hervoir added 11 kills, an ace, eight digs and a block. Fort Wayne (9-2, 1-1) hit .041.

No. 6 Loyola beat visiting Lindenwood 25-20, 29-27, 25-17 as Collin Mahan had 12 kills, hit .304, and added an ace, a block and six digs. Ricky Gevis and Will Tischler had eight kills each for the Ramblers (9-2, 2-0). Lindenwood (6-5, 1-3) got 14 kills from Michael Jennings, who had four digs and six blocks, one solo.

Eighth-ranked Lewis won its eighth in a row with its 25-20, 25-13, 25-16 win over visiting Quincy. The Flyers (8-3, 2-0) needed just 30 kills and hit .400. A balanced attack was led by Mitch Perinar and TJ Murray, who had five kills each. Quincy (8-5, 0-3) hit .108.

Also in the MIVA, McKendree (4-6, 2-1) beat visiting Ball State (5-7, 0-2) 19-25, 25-21, 26-24, 25-17. Jared Wilcox had 16 kills and hit .371 to go with two aces, five digs and three blocks for McKendree.

EIVA: George Mason got top-ranked Long Beach State to come to Virginia, but lost to the visitors from the Big West 26-24, 25-22, 25-19.

Kyle Ensing led Long Beach (12-0), the last unbeaten in Division I-II, with 12 kills while hitting .611. He had an ace, four digs and three blocks. TJ DeFalco had 11 kills, hit .500, and had three aces. Mason (4-7) got eight kills from Hayden Wagner. Sam Greenslade had six kills, hit .333 and had three of his team’s six aces.

No. 9 Penn State opened league play with a 25-23, 25-18, 25-20 win at Saint Francis. Penn State (6-2) was led by Matthew McLaren, who had 12 kills, hit .500, had three of the Nittany Lions’ seven aces, a dig and two blocks. Jalen Penrose had nine kills. SFU (5-8, 0-1) got 12 kills from Stephen Braswell.

Charleston (6-1, 2-0) beat visiting Princeton (1-9, 0-2) for the second straight night, this time surviving a tough second set for the 25-20, 34-32, 25-22 sweep. Charleston got 10 kills each from Max Senica and Eugene Stuart, who had five blocks — three solo — and three aces. George Huhmann had 12 kills, three aces and five blocks, one solo, for Princeton, which has lost seven in a row.

Also in the EIVA, Harvard dropped to 1-6 as it lost to Stevenson, the second-ranked team in Division III.

MPSF: UCLA, BYU, Pepperdine and CSUN won Saturday.

Visiting UCLA hit a season-high .494 in its sweep of No. 10 Grand Canyon. It left UCLA 13-1 overall, 2-0 in the MPSF, while the Lopes dropped to 11-3, 1-1.

Christian Hessenauer led UCLA with 14 kills while hitting .458. He had six digs and four blocks. Dylan Missry and Daenan Gyimah had nine kills each. Missry hit .471, while Gyimah hit .667 and had three of UCLA’s five aces.

GCU, which had won five in a row, got seven kills each from Luke Turner and Cullen Mosher.

Visiting BYU won its league opener as it got past No. 14 USC 25-23, 21-25, 25-23, 27-25 as Brenden Sander had a career-high 23 kills while hitting .372. He added five aces, also a career high. Gabi Garcia Fernandez added 18 kills and hit .441 to go with six digs. BYU is 8-4.

USC (4-8, 1-1) was led by Ryan Moss, who had 16 kills while hitting .394. Jack Wyett had 12 kills, an ace, six digs and a block.

No. 11 Pepperdine (5-3, 1-1) won at Concordia (4-5, 0-2) 25-17, 25-23, 24-26,25-21 as David Wieczorek had 12 kills, hit .333, and had 10 digs and four blocks. Michael Wexter had eight kills, hit .438, and had six blocks to go with an ace. Colby Harriman and Alex Harthaller also had eight kills each as Harthaller had two aces, seven digs and five blocks, one solo. Max Chamberlain had four kills, two aces and seven blocks. Raymond Barsemian and Darcy Taig had 11 kills each for Concordia.

No. 12 CSUN (7-4) of the Big West swept visiting Stanford (2-10) of the MPSF 25-23, 25-23, 25-22 as Arvis Greene had 16 kills, an ace, three blocks and a dig. Stanford, which hit .188, got 13 kills from Jaylen Jasper.

Also Saturday: Springfield beat New Paltz 25-19, 25-10, 25-22 to improve to 11-1. The Pride is ranked No. 1 in Division III, while New Paltz (4-3) is No. 14. Sergie Figueroa Velez led Springfield with 12 kills while hitting .733 and aded 10 digs, five blocks and four aces …